This is another of the early 2000’s projects I have been finishing up. Only the main shell piece had been done so I had to make the turtle look like one. I have always loved turtles from my 25 cent ones in a plastic bowl with a palm tree when I was a kid to Moe and Joe who were with me from 1985 to 2003 for Joe who died and 2005 for Moe when I gave him to my son before moving to Canada. My son gave him to a pet store to be a display and their pet. He was too old to sell. Moe and Joe were world travelers. They joined the family in California. Made a car trip to Montana. Flew in a small plane from Idaho to Montana in crappy weather. Then 11 years later they moved to Albuquerque. For 8 years in Montana, they were a threesome when Sam joined the fun. Unfortunately Sam got a respiratory illness and died.

This turtles’ name is MoeJoe, in honor of my beloved boys.

Here’s the quilted shell.

And here’s the underside.

MoeJoe will keep me company in the Studio. Later this year, I will be putting together two turtle quilts that I have patterns for.

Honest to goodness, I have not forgotten you or my blog but it has been a bit crazy. I discovered I don’t handle a lot of extra curricular activities as well as I would like. I have had ongoing Monday night classes for the last couple of months and an 8 week class I was taking on Tuesday nights. That ended last Tuesday. I enjoyed it but I am glad it is over. Plus I have been job hunting.

Since the new year started, I have been sending out resumes with no interest at all. I finally went to Community Futures which is a provincially sponsered job hunting program. I spent three – 2 hour sessions there making a couple of killer resumes. With a 15% unemployment rate here in Vernon, you have to work hard to get noticed. On top of that the number of jobs available is pretty small. BUT I did get called for an interview yesterday and it went well. Maybe towards the end of the week I will hear something.

At the Studio I have a lot of alterations and hemming coming in so I am not getting much else done there. Some of the alterations have been overly time consuming which makes it worse. I had to implement a one hour rule. I get to do something for myself for at least one hour a day. I usually pick the last hour of the day and anytime on Monday I can get. To that end, I spent 3 hours last Monday binding the oriental/whitework quilt. I plan to do a separate post about the binding but I will show it to you and the finished quilt.

It was hung up for Show and Tell at Guild meeting on Thursday. It was 2 years in the making from the purchase of the oriental charm packs in March 2010. The white batting and backing were purchased in May 2011 and the bulk of the work being done between October 2010 and last week. It will go on our bed tonight.

Here is a close up of the binding. I used the Janome Quilt Binding attachment on my Horizon 7700. The design is a fan from the quilt section of stitches. It took 3 hours to complete the binding. If I had used a straight stitch it would have been a half hour job. Specialty stitches take time. My friend Lola spend most of the time with me and it was possible to actually turn away from the sewing for a short time.

My New Years Resolution was to complete projects that have not been finished or have not even been started. Some of these projects are on the old side. In 2002 or 2003, My parents and I attended a quilt show in Rio Rancho, NM put on by the local quilt guild. This was the second show from this guild we had attended. We all enjoyed it. On the way in and out of the show we walked through the Merchant’s Mall. I had seen the rag quilt on the way in and stopped on the way out to look at the kit and bought it. It has been in the drawer since then. A few weeks ago I got it out and started putting it together. Here it is hanging at the last guild meeting along side the other quilt.

I bought this kit when rag quilts were becoming popular and finally made it after the big fuss was over. Not sure what I will do with it. For the moment it will hang in the Studio and if I get another grandchild, they may get it.

So what is next? I took a Stack ‘N Whack or Kalidescope quilt class in Albuquerque in the early 2000’s. I have the book and the fabric I bought to complete the quilt and I have 12 finished pieces on my design wall. There are also some repeats stacked waiting to be whacked and assembled.

The guild has a one day retreat on Thursday so that will be my project for the day.

I also have some fabric I intend to make a picnic quilt out of. This has been waiting since the early 2000’s also. I am looking for the right pattern to make.

We have a hillside across from our house that the deer like to frequent. This was taken Friday afternoon.

February is almost over and I have several unfinished projects lying around. Well maybe more than several. I have started too many things and had projects for customers that had to be done first and students, so not much got done.

This lunch bag got finished because I am offering this as a class so needed the sample done.

This is from the book One Yard Wonders. I changed a couple of things like adding the outside pocket and the handle. I moved the inside pocket from the back to the side so it could hold utensils. I used scraps from making my Guild Bag so I now have a matching lunch bag for those guild activities that involve lunch.

Speaking of Guild activities, a bunch of us got together last Thursday for a One-Day Retreat. This is a great time to start a new project. I had saved a Moda jelly roll called A Little Romance. Have you heard of Bed Runners? I got a book from Clothide titled Bed Runners and decided the jelly roll would be prefect for it. Actually, there was enough to make two of them. Here is a picture of half of the center section.

I got a dark purple fabric for the border and one of them, will have a sashing of squares made from the leftover pieces from the jelly roll. The backing for them will be a an oriental floral print. I am very excited about this project. One will go on my bed and the other will be sold on Etsy. The batting will be silk. I have never used silk but it is warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Can’t wait to try it.

The boucle skirt is still waiting to be hemmed and the oriental quilt is still waiting for stitch-in-the-ditch and binding. Plus I need to get the tax stuff ready for the accountant. Next week will be fun!

Whew was that a process. It didn’t help that I came down with a cold either. This afternoon I finished the last embroidery stitch out. But the last one did not get done smoothly. The design stitches the character first then stitches the word. I knew the bobbin was low but thought it would make it to the end. It ran out on the bottom curve of the last ‘s’ in Happiness. Luckily it is not too much of a problem to get it back to that spot after changing the bobbin and finish.

These are the other 3 designs I used.

I am also working on a couple projects out of a book I recently bought. I will post about them soon. Also there are a couple Etsy shops being put together. As soon as they are up and running I will post about them. In the meantime, I need to figure out how I will bind the quilt and the skirt still needs to be hemmed. Plus I have a couple jobs for clients to do. Busy Busy!

I got the last of the stitch-in-the-ditch done and started the embroidery. This will be a long process. Each embroidery takes about 40 minutes to stitch out. Plus there is a couple minutes to set the center point in the block and then center the hoop. There are 4 different designs and each will be embroidered 5 times. One design is all done and I have completed the first of the next design. Although I think I will just do each vertical row. It is not a big deal to switch designs each time.

This is the first design:

The thread is rayon with a polyester bobbin thread. This takes alot of bobbin thread. If you can help it, don’t let the bobbin run out in the middle of the embroidery. I am loving the effect.

The other thing I figured out the hard way, is to not let the quilt hang over the edge of the table. Make sure the machine can move freely. It paused and waited for me to take the tension out of the quilt by bunching it up on the table around the machine.

It will be awhile before the embroidery is done. While it was working I finished hemming a Christmas tablecloth. Still need to hem the pencil skirt and to start on the jacket that goes with the skirt. Resolutions are marching on!